


Thicker Than the Water of the Womb

by kitausuret



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Venom (Comics)
Genre: Andi is the very best, Anxiety, Betty Brant just rolls with everything, Complicated Relationships, Eddie does not know how to Friends, Eddie in Therapy, Flash is a good supportive (boy)friend, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Multi, Overprotective Peter Parker, Romance, Roughly Dust to Dust universe, emotional support symbiote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22689346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitausuret/pseuds/kitausuret
Summary: Eddie Brock finds himself faced with a difficult question:Does he have friends?Over the years, from childhood and haunting him into his adult years, he has struggled with the concept. But now that his life is finally starting to feel a little bit more stable, and he has people in his life, are they actuallyfriends?Or is he just deluding himself into thinking they are?Sometimes, the best thing to do is to simply... ask.
Relationships: Background Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote, Betty Brant & Eddie Brock, Developing Eddie Brock/Flash Thompson/Venom Symbiote, Eddie Brock & Flash Thompson, Eddie Brock & Peter Parker, Eddie Brock | Venom & Andrea Benton | Mania
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50
Collections: SYMBRUARY





	Thicker Than the Water of the Womb

**Author's Note:**

> Symbruary Prompts 9/10/11, Family, Friendship, and Romance!  
> This got long so they are all getting smushed into one. 
> 
> This is kind of compliant with the other stories I've written that take place in the same timeline as Dust to Dust, yes I realize it has not been updated in many months, yes I do apologize, no I haven't abandoned it entirely...
> 
> I have a lot of ideas about how Eddie and Betty could be really great friends but unfortunately approximately zero of them are actually written down. I just think it would be neat!

“Do you have friends, Eddie?”

“Of course I…” Eddie paused. He looked at Nieves, who just lifted her eyebrows at him in a silent motion to continue. She twirled a pen in the hand that was part mechanical, part symbiote. “Everybody has friends.”

“That’s not what I asked,” she said. “I asked if _you_ had friends.”

He searched the carpet of her office as if it held the answers. He gave the symbiote a mental prod. **_Do_ ** _I have friends?_

_“Have people that like you. You like them.”_

Eddie thought back on his life. Had he ever _really_ had friends? His father’s idea of “friends” was more like “assets”. It had been instilled in him from a young age that if someone wanted to be around you, they probably wanted something from you. Everything was give and take. Even relationships were transactional. Of course, _he_ hadn’t viewed his relationships that way (or at least tried not to) but he always had the nagging sense in the back of his mind that everyone always wanted something out of someone. 

So, _did_ he have friends? 

“I’m not certain.”

“Maybe you should find that out.”

He narrowed his eyes at Nieves. “Are we…?”

“No,” she said with a quiet laugh. “I’m your therapist. And Scorn is your symbiote’s grandchild, but that does not make us family, either.”

“Right. I knew that.”

“You’ll figure it out, Eddie.” She closed her notebook and stood. “Same time next week?”

He quickly scrawled out ‘friends list’ in a small notepad from the dollar store. “As always, Dr. Nieves.” Now he just needed to figure out the best way to do this.

\-----

“Are we friends?”

Elizabeth Brant looked up from her laptop. “Uh, what?”

“Are we _friends?_ ”

“Are you asking this because you… because you and Flash..?”

“No, no,” he said quickly. Eddie looked down at the cup of chai in his hands, thoroughly distracted from his project now. “I was just wondering, I suppose. I know we work together, sometimes, but I wasn’t sure if that just made us _de facto_ co-workers or actually…”

“Friends?”

He gave a curt nod.

She smiled, bemused. “Eddie, we meet for lunch every week. You, me, and Flash - well, and you-know-who-” (The symbiote gave a tiny trill in the back of his mind.) “-do a movie night at least a couple times a month. You text me for advice, and not always just in the realm of modern web journalism.” 

“...I’m sorry, I don’t know what that-”

“It means yes, Eddie Brock, we are friends.”

“Even though Flash Thompson is your ex and-”

“-and you’re sleeping with him? Yes.”

“ _Lower your voice!_ ” he hissed.

Betty giggled and flicked his paper cup. “Oh yeah, we’re definitely friends.”

\-----

> "Peter,  
> Are we friends?   
> -Eddie”

He hit the “Send” button and stuck his phone back in his pocket. Trying to call Parker was a lost cause, he’d learned, as any phone call usually went straight to voicemail. They had exchanged phone numbers some time ago (or more accurately, the day Peter found out he was _involved_ with Flash Thompson) and were mostly cordial with each other. Eddie always had the strange feeling that he had known something about Peter and maybe forgotten it, or perhaps had taken one too many hits to the head. The symbiote always grew quiet during those moment, somehow bothersome to it, so it always let the idea go.

After all, this was all about moving on, and moving forward.

A few minutes more of cleaning up the dishes from supper that evening, Flash called from the kitchen table. “Hey Eddie?”

“Hmm?”

“Did… did you just ask Peter if you were friends?”

Eddie dried his hands and checked his phone. No new messages, but he always figured that the SMS system _had_ to be slower than just making a damn phone call. “Why do you ask?”

“Uh, because he just texted me asking if you were up to something.”

“Oh, for the love of… Tell him I am calling him in sixty seconds. And he needs to pick up.”

“Why are you guys so weird around each other?”

“Because he threatened to break my spine and hide the body if anything ever happened to you.”

“...Pete means well.”

“I’m calling him.”

Flash snorted. “Good luck getting a hold of him.”

Miraculously, when he dialed the phone number, Parker picked up. Wind rushed through the receiver and he shouted through it. “Brock, I’m a little busy!”

“Why would you _message_ _Flash_ just to ask a question?!”

“Oh, _I’m sorry_ , maybe I just think it’s weird that _Venom_ is asking if we’re friends or not-”

He pulled the phone away to glare at it. Flash paused in his current project to mouth “everything okay?” at him. Eddie rolled his eyes and held the phone between his face and shoulder, getting back to the dishes. “If we’re not, just say we’re not so I can cross you off the list.”

“You have a list?”

“It’s for a… what do you care, anyways?”

“Who’s on top?”

“It’s not in any particular order!”

“Is anyone _else_ crossed off that you had written on there? Wait, why was I written on there in the first place?”

“Just answer the question!”

Flash snorted in laughter. Apparently only getting half of the conversation was more than enough for him. 

The wind on the other end of the phone call finally stopped with a _tap-tap_ of feet hitting the pavement. Peter must have been on a subway or the like. “Well, we’re not enemies. I have enough of those.”

“So we’re..?” Eddie tried again to prompt an answer.

“Ugh, we’re acquaintances. I guess. For now.”

“For _now?_ ”

“I’ve got my eye on you, Brock. Remember what I said.”

And with that, the call disconnected. 

“So?” Flash called. 

“Acquaintances, he said.”

He started laughing, and Eddie flicked soap water at him.

Flash only laughed harder.

\-----

**“Are we friends?”**

**“Are you asking me or yourself? ...yourselves? Or are you asking** **_us_** **?”**

There was muffled yelling to their right. Mania shot out a tendril to whack the purse-snatcher in the head and knocked him unconscious. Venom signaled for her to follow, and clambered up the fire escape to the roof of the building. A dozen pigeons scattered upon their landing. 

**“We are asking both of you.”**

The eyespots of her mask widened a little. Mania stretched her arms out with a quiet hum and considered the question. **“I mean, Eddie, you’re a little bit more like a weird uncle. And Venom is like our weird older sibling.”** She shrugged and the mask fell away from Andi’s face. She raked her hands through the asymmetrical cuts of her purple hair and stared up at the night sky. “I wouldn’t say that we’re as close as like, me and Coach, but you’ve basically become a staple of our lives. And of course, we’ve known Venom a lot longer than we’ve known you.”

The symbiote emitted a kind of soft purr in the back of Eddie’s mind. It was awfully fond of the both of them, and frankly, so was Eddie. Andi was bright and energetic and compassionate. He almost hated to admit it, but for all his faults, Flash had done well in mentoring her. But she also spoke fondly of her father, since passed, and her aunt in Jenkinstown, her closest remaining relative. Andi had been a good influence on Mania, too, and Eddie remembered all too well how it had once been before being reabsorbed into Venom.

 **“So,”** they said, **“we are friends?”**

Andi scoffed and rolled her eyes, but she smiled wide at them. “No, dipshit!” And then she was Mania once more and she ran at Venom, wrapping them up in a hug. 

**“We’re** **_family!_** **”**

\-----

Eddie had one more person on his list, and the fact that he had tagged the item with a question mark gave him pause. It shouldn’t have been a question. Should it? If even _Peter Parker_ could be marked down as “acquaintance”, this one should have been easy. There existed no doubt in the symbiote’s mind about the first person Eddie had written down, but he lacked its confidence.

So, like everyone else, he decided to ask Flash Thompson:

“Are we friends?”

It almost didn’t seem like a fair time. Flash’s eyes had just about glazed over, starting to fall asleep right there on the couch, leaned comfortably up against Eddie. A _Star Trek_ film played on the television (“not all the odd-numbered ones are bad!”) and the symbiote watched the flickering screen intently, draped over both of them and the couch like some kind of stringy throw blanket. 

But before he could rescind his question, Flash glanced up at him. His eyes sharpened a little in the glow of the television. “Sorry, what?”

“Forget it, it’s…” Eddie shook his head. “It’s not important. I can ask you in the-”

“Did you just ask if we’re friends?”

“Forget it, Flash, it’s a stupid question.”

Flash’s brow creased. “No, it’s not. It’s not a stupid question at all.” He sat up, grabbed the remote to hit pause on the film, and turned to face Eddie. “What do _you_ think?”

“I asked _you_.”

“I already know my answer. What worries me is that you don’t know yours.”

Eddie felt the color drain from his face as he moved his arm away from its comfortable place around Flash’s shoulders.. The urge to flee, to make up an excuse and rush away, pulled at him. The symbiote grounded him; took his hand and squeezed it.

_“Talk to him, Eddie. Only way to solve this.”_

“I think our relationship is complicated,” he at last said. 

“That’s a given.”

“But I don’t know if that means we are…”

“Friends?”

“Right.”

“But…”

Eddie sighed and rubbed his face. “We both went into this because we wanted to help my… our… the symbiote.” His other gave a loving pulse and then brushed a tendril over Flash’s face affectionately. “But now I… when I think about being with _it_ I also think about… _God_ this is _stupid_.”

“Don’t say that,” Flash said, a little forcefully. He reached out and took Eddie’s hand. “It’s not stupid.” He softened his voice. “Go on. Please.”

“I can’t think about _it_ without thinking about _you_ , and I don’t know what that means.” Frustrated, he stood and slipped his hand out of Flash’s. “I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know what to make of it and I’m not used to having… people! People that _care!_ Especially people like you!”

“What? People like me? What does that even-”

“People who are good! People who are good and understanding and patient because I don’t know if I even deserve that!” 

Flash’s jaw dropped open. The symbiote froze its languid movements across Eddie’s skin. After an agonizing moment, Flash took his hand and tugged until he sat back down on the couch, and then Flash held his face, gently. And then he looked Eddie dead in the eyes.

“Don’t say that.”

“Don’t say-?”

“Don’t say you don’t know if you deserve good people. Because you do.” He leaned forward and pressed his forehead up against Eddie’s. “Yeah, what we have is complicated. We’re complicated people, the three of us. But the people who are your friends? The people who are your _real_ family? They chose you as much as you chose them. Don’t ever, _ever_ think otherwise.”

And then Flash kissed him, very softly, nothing more to come of it and yet with a deep sense of intimacy in the way his touch lingered. The symbiote looped around to cover where Flash’s hands still held Eddie, quietly echoing its old partner’s words in his mind. 

“Can I tell you something?”

Eddie lifted his eyebrows.

“I don’t actually have a word for how I think of us. But I always figured that you would.”

“Haven’t determined one, yet. But… we are at _least_ friends.”

“Oh, yeah. Gotta ask - was Andi on the list?”

“Mmm. Said I was a… ‘weird uncle’.”

Flash grinned. “So what did you mark her down as?”

“The only thing that made sense - family.”

“We sure make a weird bunch. That and having your treating physician hosting your symbiote’s grandchild… but you know what?” He hit play on the movie again and settled back into Eddie’s side. “I wouldn’t trade any of this for anything.”

Eddie pulled him closer, and for just a moment, the symbiote colored his words and they had the same exact thought:

**“Neither would we.”**


End file.
